Da "Kultur" schwer wahrnehmbar ist, ist sie auch schwer zu definieren. Bestimmte Einstellungen, intelektuelle oder künstlerische Schritte sind charakteristisch für bestimmte ethnische oder soziale Gruppen und somit kulturell definierend. Wenn eine kulturelle Gruppe (durch ihre Bedeutung oder Ghettoisierung) nicht mehr von einer anderen abhängig ist und sich selbst genügt, werden ihre Eigenheiten schließlich nicht mehr von der Gruppe wahrgenommen, da sie zur Norm geworden sind. So sind manche Frauen beleidigt, wenn man ihnen nicht die Tür öffnet, während andere sich weigern würden irgend eine Schwelle vor ihrem Mann zu übertreten. Die dominierende Kultur einer Welt, egal welcher Größenordnung (sei es eine Straße, eine Wohnung, eine Kirche oder auch ein Land, mehr noch eine halbe Erdkugel) definiert die gesellschaftlich angemessene Haltung, die trotz ihrer Besonderheit oft jedem einzelnen genauso kategorisch erscheint, wie Mord oder Inzest. Im Ausland zu leben ist eine besonders bereichernde Erfahrung: man lernt eine andere Kultur kennen und hat gleichzeitig genug Abstand, um die eigene mehr zu schätzen. Ich persönlich bin mir meiner eigenen Kultur durch das Leben in Deutschland bewußt geworden, während ich die deutsche Kultur in mannigfaltigsten, unerwarteten Situationen entdeckte. Die "Bar Jeder Vernunft" ist eher ein Tempel der Berliner Kultur, aber nichtsdestotrotz habe ich dort meine Theorie der nationalen Kultur entwickelt. Hat die Show begonnen, besteht meine Arbeit darin, die Ungestörtheit der Zuschauer und Künstler zu gewährleisten, daß heißt, mich um Außenstehende zu kümmern, die sich informieren oder einfach nur schnorren wollen. So fand sich eines abends, eine halbe Stunde vor dem Ende der Vorstellung ein konservativer Herr in den sechzigern ein, er trug einen marineblauen Kaschmirmantel. Seine Aktentasche legte die Vermutung nahe, daß er um 22:30 Uhr direkt von der Arbeit kam. Nach einer kurzen Unterredung, wußte ich daß er seine Frau abholen, und nach hause begleiten wollte und daß er geduldig im Vorzelt, das der "Bar Jeder Vernunft" als Foyer dient, warten würde. Der Eingang des Hauptzelts, ein leuchtend roter Moltonvorhang - der ein Bereich markiert, der nur mit einer Eintrittskarte betreten werden kann - wird von zwei robusten Stühlen undefinierbaren Stils flankiert, deren Leopardenpolster mich vage an Kolonialmöbel erinnern. Für meinen späten Besucher jedoch stellten sie etwas völlig anderes dar! Der, zu Unrecht, zwielichtige Ruf, den das Haus bei schlecht Informierten genießt, hat es oft auf eine Stufe mit irgendwelchen geschmacklosen Etablissements gestellt. Diese Stühle erinnerten den alten Herrn keinesfalls an Kolonialzeiten, sondern bestimmt an etwas Vulgäres, das eigentlich in ein Bordell gehört. Die Müdigkeit nach einem so langen Arbeitstag führte ihn dazu, mich zu fragen, ob er in einem dieser Stühle Platz nehmen dürfe, um diesen Moment der Ruhe genießen zu können. Mir schien die Frage eher eine Geste der Höflichkeit und ich antwortete: "Bitteschön mein Herr!" Nachdem er sich gesetzt hatte, hellte sich das erschöpfte, abgespannte Gesicht plötzlich auf: er hatte es gewagt! Seine graue, trübe Alltagswelt war durch die Berührung mit der Phantasie durcheinandergebracht worden. Er befand sich mitten im Bühnenbild, auf dem Platz eines Schauspielers, er war ein Künstler! Soviel Kühnheit durfte nicht ungestraft bleiben, dem Glück folgte die Panik. Seine beiden Hände, von Altersflecken bedeckt - in gewisser Weise passend zu den Bezügen - krallten sich verzweifelt an die Stuhlbeine, sein Gesicht verzerrte sich zu einer verschreckten Grimasse und mit zitternder Stimme fragte er mich: "Ist das stabil?" Ich verstand nicht sofort was er mir sagen wollte, aber ich fürchtete ihm ginge es nicht gut und wollte schon Hilfe besorgen. Ich sagte: "Wie bitte?" Verzweifelt wiederholte er: "Der Stuhl! Ist er stabil?" Aber sicher mein Herr, das ist zum Sitzen gedacht!" Etwas erleichert aber nicht ganz zuversichtlich, der anfängliche Moment des Reizes schien weg! Gedanken wie etwa "Und wenn mich ein Bekannter hier sieht?" oder "Wie stehe ich da, wenn der Stuhl am Ende doch nicht hält?" mußten ihm durch den Kopf gegangen sein; die verlorene Unbekümmertheit sollte sich nicht wieder einstellen, die kurze Atempause vom Alltagsstress war verdorben! Das unerklärliche Benehmen meines Gegenübers machte mich stutzig. Das Ganze hatte kaum mehr als eine Minute gedauert und ich versuchte immer noch zu verstehen, was passiert war, als mir plötzlich ein Licht aufging: der Stuhl war lustig, also konnte er unmöglich stabil sein! Dieser Mann schien mir jetzt wie eine Karikatur des germanischen Geistes. Die Dinge müssen stabil sein, sie müssen so funktionieren wie sie gedacht sind und zwar so präzise und lange wie möglich. Dieses stabile Universum, in dem Überraschungen nicht willkommen sind, streift seltsammerweise ein lustiges Universum, in dem man während seiner Freizeit Abenteuer erlebt und wo alles nicht länger als ein Lachen dauert. Erheitern gilt als Entschuldigung für mangelnde Stabilität. Weder stabil, noch amüsant sein, heißt auf einen Platz im deutschen Kulturraum verzichten. Wenn das "Stabile" eher dem Bereich Arbeit zuzuordnen ist und das das "Lustige" der Freizeit, so gibt es doch zahllose Wechselbeziehungen zwischen beiden, wie der Stuhl beweist, es gibt erheiternde Dinge die nicht weniger stabil sind. Zum Beispiel ich: auch wenn ich einen niedlichen Akzent habe und mein Verhalten manchmal unerwartet scheint - was mich als "lustig" kategorisiert-, schätze ich die Stabilität , ja ich brauche sie sogar. Seit 15 Jahren ziehe ich mich gleich an, benütze Parfum einer Marke und bin einem Elektonikhersteller treu geblieben. Ganz zu schweigen von meinen sozialen Gewohnheiten, es sind die selben!
Philippe Claude übersätzt von Alexzandra Ahlborn (April 2000)
Discovering a new country became much more difficult because of consume and medias.
We need to think fast and multitask and therefore we need short cuts to save time. For example, you watch some James Bond movie and he is suddenly in Paris. Most of the case you’ll see a panorama of Paris with the Eiffel Tower. You still don’t know why he is in Paris but in one second you have the information about what must have take at least five hours (I do not understand the James Bond movies, I love them for the style and the attitude but I never get the intrigue and why there is so much travelling in them. It must be too British for me!). If you watch a “Sex And The City” movie, you will see from the bridge “Alexandre III” the beautiful dome of the “Invalides” and hear few notes of a Edith Piaf song. It will take few seconds more because Carrie loves Paris and she is not in a spying operation but the result is the same, Parisian culture is reduced to some clichés which define tourism (creating a lot of currency venues) . I didn’t take Paris as example only because I grew up there but also, as a matter of a fact, because it is still the biggest touristic city in the world. So every day, people ask me why I left Paris “Such a beautiful city!” – “Ah, you like Paris?” – “Oh, I never been there, but would love to go!” For me it just means: another victim of clichés. In 2010, I guess you can spend one week in Paris just seeing things you already saw in movies and in the same time spending two months of salary. At the end of course I prefer the clichés about Paris than the one about Calcutta but the only explanation I can give to their persistent existence is the fear. I mean if you would know the real Paris, you should be afraid but I am talking about the fear of the difference and how comforting it is to stay in an area where you know everything, even if it is not the truth.
I was born curious and social so I can surmount the fear but I appreciate my frame of references (where I can define myself in front of others and where I feel comfortable)! I try to readjust my frame after every new experience of differences, and if I cannot profit of them in my surrounding, I normally, can better understand and respect. Unfortunately, most of the tourists are afraid of confronting something difficult to understand, even if it could be a much more fulfilling cultural experience. There I must admit (my German friends will hate me) Germans are the worse. They are the worse because they travel the most (I am not that well informed about the Japanese way but it might be comparable). They have this stupid show on TV where they follow teenagers who left Germany for one year of education. Normally, after six weeks they always have “Heimweh”, they miss their “Salzkartoffeln” and “Rostbraten”. This is the moment I am waiting for and I really enjoy, how the little fifteen years old Tanja from the “Ruhrgebiet” will manifest her own “Heimweh Gefühl”? Be realistic, Germans invented the idea of being “Home sick” and “Heimat” is a word with a very controversial history!
I was always so happy to be able to leave Paris that I never missed it; even after seventeen years I still do not miss it. Of course there are few little things that I really enjoy in Paris and that I can’t have in Berlin but what would be the point of feeling unhappy missing them somewhere they don’t belong. I try to recognize and enjoy this Parisian “Je ne sais quoi” while I’m there. Those things are very far from the clichés. I love walking the “Rue Montorgueil” at 7.30 p.m, before the closing of the bakery, and queue for fifteen minutes for half a baguette. The bakery next door is totally empty and cheaper but the waiting is not important because the bread is so delicious! This is for me a very Parisian moment which can’t be sold in a travel agency and tells as much as the Eiffel Tower on the culture. Talking about the Eiffel Tower, nobody knows that it was the tallest building in the world when it was built, exactly like the World Trade Center in its times. Culturally, nations building the tallest buildings are arrogant and try to show their supremacy to the others, and so was France. Then why those tons of iron design by Gustave Eiffel should be romantic today? Because romantic is not threatening and does sell good!
So, back to the Germans, they are obsessed with leaving their country* and once they finally found the missing sun, they start to miss little details from their daily life without being able to enjoy the little details from the life of those they visit. Why do they travel that much then? Because the boredom! All of us, western privileged capitalistic products, we don’t need to fight to survive, we are living well but we are bored, so we need entertainment and for this we are ready to give all our savings. We love the “Panem et circensem” but we don’t want to be in the arena with the lions, we want to sit comfortably in our sofas, eating chips and to have the best view on the show. Those ones are not Aborigines anymore, they are in an acting school and they make a little money during the holiday break! As I was visiting India, I needed six month, I was a “Traveler” but we, ”Travelers”, we would contempt the ”Tourists” who would pretend seeing India in two weeks. The problem is that a trip to Rajasthan for retired people from Miami or a visit of the Backwaters of Cochin for some French bourgeois from Paris is much more valuable that some European pot head who did just flunk his studies and want to stay the cheapest and the longest high on the beach! The consume society profit of bringing us passive in front of the big screen. We are directly there, it is in 3D, and we could touch it if we wanted but we built an invisible fence; we can see them but they can’t approach us, we are not in danger!
-“Does anyone want some ice cream?”
* Actually, there is a text in Latin from a monk from the fifteen century telling that they invented the modern concept of tourism. Already at that time the ancestors of our friends were going to Venice, maybe not for their honeymoon, but just to visit. The artistic Venetians were hiding themselves thinking they would be eaten or burned (or both), seeing those Teutonic monsters coming; but instead of that they wanted to buy little souvenirs to bring back home. Once the masters of the “Renascimento” sold all their repairing tools and kitchen utensils, they start to produce very cheap ones without any possible use just for the “Export”. I guess those souvenirs were “Kaputt” very fast once home and back then it would be decided to make good quality “Made in Germany”!
I love to tell a “bon mot” from the very beginning of the European unity formation. In 1961, de Gaulle, Eisenhower and Churchill organize the first summit to start a commune economy for France, West-Germany and England. At the last minute Churchill cancel his venue because a storm is blowing in his country. Listening to this new, Charles de Gaulle says: “Of course, British people have storms, they live on an island!” Those words, describing a geographic situation that everybody knew, told by the French president in this context were dramatic. He just decided that European politic would be based in Bonn and Paris and that London would be only a satellite of it. Fifty years later, almost nothing changed, they still have storms in England!
First the coins, left you’ve got the two dollars coins and they are twice smaller as the one dollar coins. It’s getting worse two dollars are physically a quarter of a fifty cent coin and the same size as a five cent coin!
Money is a basic sign of national identity so we do respect this different detail and sometimes the Australians are not rude so, when you want to pay, you just have to take all your coins in your hand and they pick what they need. Not a big deal!
But much more life endangering is the way they drive cars; they drive on the left side! How is this possible? If you are lucky they write on the street “Look right”, “Look left”, but sometimes nothing is written and then you turn desperately in every direction your head, you try also to hear if a car could come and then you just run because the danger is everywhere. This nonsense can happen only on an island. When right is right then left must be wrong!
I wrote already how annoyed I was by the higher prices but now I discovered how amazed I could be by all the free things; and it is for sure a much more positive way of thinking!
- First, there is clean toilet for free everywhere. I mean really free, nobody waiting with a little plate telling you how respectful it would be to leave him fifty cents. I drink too much tea and I find myself permanently in very embarrassing situation in public. Here, “No worries”! there is always in the next 500 meters a Female and Male facilities possibility. I love the Male Call!
- Then the museums. If twenty five dollars are a normal entrance fee, there is often a free admission part, or a free admission day which is very enjoyable, let’s say “Lovely”!
- Then the tip. When tip is not forbidden, it doesn’t look like obligatory. Of course when almost everywhere they give you some blinking pager to pick up yourself your dish when it is ready, the idea of service must be a bit different. I don’t mind, I love to sneak in professional kitchens to see how they work!
Of course there is plenty of others that I‘ve already discovered and some I didn’t but this is not the point, it is all about the awareness of it. Why can’t I see the Fantastique when it is all around?
It is a lot of work, they live at the end of the world!
I see more and more people writing diaries by hand on precious little notebooks and I don’t know why teenagers decide to write by hand on the 21st century. In the time of computers, cell phones and blogs, writing by hand seems so old fashioned. Yes, that’s the point, it gives importance to what you write; it makes it, when it is not necessary, almost intellectual already at the beginning. I remember in the 80’s when anybody going to Germany would have to bring back five Mont Blanc pens because they were so much cheaper there. We had checkbooks at the time and we would ostensibly take the white stared pen out of our pockets and, whatever would be the amount we would write, it would seem so chic! I have seven at home, five Meisterstück (do you write an E at the end when it is plural, anyway do not forget the “Umlaut”) and two fantastic from the 50’s; I didn’t use them since 1993, my awakening to computer life! Do I want to keep the “Zwischenablage”??? No, no, no, I have nothing to do with those barbaric things! Delete! And suddenly my whole text about “The worth of things” disappeared; ironically it didn’t have so much worth! I am here, trying to write again my fantastic text and it is not as good as it was before, and I wish I would have written my text by hand. But vintage is only for the young ones who didn’t experience the original; otherwise it looks like desperate nostalgia: “It used to be so much better before!” The only thing you are missing is the power of your beauty which faded away and that you were not clever enough to compensate by other ways! You should remember how much you suffered, how much time you lost and how many mistake you did because you were so young; but you can’t because the only thing you can remember is how many eyes were following any of your steps whenever you entered a room! My only notebook has a keyboard, not a pen! That’s the moment where I could start about the new “absolutism” of the binary society but I wanted to introduce interactivity in my blog (Micky renounced to take part of it but savors any of my entry!) Both are correlated but let’s put things in order, first the interactivity! There is plenty of people who talk about themselves in the street, normally they shout, are drunk and homeless. Nobody understands them and nobody wants; I do not want to look like one of them! Internet created new ways of communication which sometimes could be interpreted like isolation. Some others go at the end of the world and spend hours on Facebook with their 500 “Friends” back home, and are not able to start a conversation with someone in the same hotel lobby! They can be compared; they only express themselves (or cannot) in different times. So, I have so many things to write which are not only about myself, they are also about my world, and I share a part of it with you (yes, I can be extremely social!). I don’t want people to think like me (what for a torture!), but I want to prove people it makes sense to think different than they do and that could be an extension of their own thoughts. It needs to be entertaining and you know better than me what entertains you. So, here is the deal, I will try to put a section on the blog where I could list all the crazy subjects which are coming to my mind and that I don’t have the time to write in the same time. I am producing a huge work (four hours and one liter tea for every computer page), and interesting you give me more pleasure than to bore you. The only feedback I got is from people I totally admire (Deborah Cole, you are a goddess!) and already heard “de visu” all my deliriums, so I need the opinion of the others, what they like and what they don’t like. I feel that my possible readers could not dare to say something because it wouldn’t be on the level. Which level? I can read perfectly French, English, German or Spanish (or at least I have a translation option in my computer), so tell me in your words what could be interesting to you, and I will try to challenge you with my words! Next blog’s entries: - The new “Absolutism” of the binary society (thoughts about computers, Joseph Beuys and the digital revolution) - The “Doppelganger” society (what 20.000 people dancing by Oprah Winfrey the choreography of “I’ve got a feeling”, the Black Eyed Peas smash hit, 150 George Michael parading at the Sydney Mardi-Gras with the real one in the middle and 5200 naked people posing for Spencer Tunick, have in common) - The directions of the communication (writing or talking, the trace of our expressions and the definition of politeness in a social surrounding) - The day when the grass got greener (nothing to do with Australia, but how I got rid of a part of my heavy past) - My dream with Madonna (again nothing to do with Australia but how is based my respect for extraordinary people without admiring their work) - Architecture in Australia (how, in the same Australian city, you can feel like in New York, Brighton or a little village from a John Wayne movie) - Australian money (how the size of the Australian coins already define another perception of the currency; or what you pay and what you get for free is very different in every country, it could be cultural)
I hate to think about money, that’s why I hate when it is expensive. Actually I love it when it is expensive and an expression of luxury, beauty or anything special that others can’t afford, but I hate it when it is overpriced! That’s why I love famous designer sales. I would never pay 400 Euros for a pair of shoes, but beautiful sexy, elegant and fantastic quality shoes who are reduced from 400 to 200, I can’t resist; and I can tell you half of my shoes belongs to this category! For most of the people, 200 Euros for a pair of shoes is expensive but they spend 100 to 150 Euro for boring shoes in a bad quality, I find them expensive, which mean they do not worth the price! I think that Australia or at least Sydney do not worth the price! I do not understand why I should pay 5,32 Euros for a tube ticket. The tube is complicated, it takes time and you have to change of train all the time and at the end its first purpose should be social. People laugh when I say that Paris has one of the cheapest common transport system of Europe but as a matter of a fact, you can travel two hours in Paris from one point to another just for one Euro because it gets subvention from the city of Paris. I grew up with this and I think it is right. My friends tell me I had a bad exchange course but I have Internet, I think they are the ones without the information! When I travel I need beauty, beautiful food (drinks also!), beautiful people, beautiful clothes, beautiful architecture and culture .You have here low quality products for the price of luxury. Basti stays in my hostel (I mean, he stays in a dorm and I have a “Ensuite” which is much closer to a “Next!” than from a “Suite”) and feed himself with sugar cubes because he can’t afford bread! And this has nothing to do with neither drugs nor alcohol; he just loves to be with his German friends, enjoys the beach and is travelling since a long time. I ask why they do not prefer to go to Vietnam or to Cape Town where everything is so much more affordable and they answer that here; it is much nicer because it is the opposite point on the globe from Germany. Why beauty should be correlated to distance? I do not understand! The kids are so full of joy, passion and ideals but they are not eating enough. I realized that a (prehistorically) gay couple is not as threatening as a single (middle age) gay person for young men. They could identify Micky and me very fast to the parents they would have love to have. A sexual side never entered our relationship; when we felt responsible to tell our experiences of journeys, they would listen and on the top, they loved that we had always some booze to share with them. Today the kids are leaving and I am already missing them. Will they be alright? Did I find beauty around them instead of Sydney? Did I find culture in this desperate thirst of seeing the world more than in the city in itself? I guess so! The two are not dissociable, so I might see Sydney on a new positive aspect. Good bye kids! Will you write on Facebook? Please just send a picture from time to time, if it is possible.
Travelling in Australia should be all about discovering nature and respecting your origins. Then, since more than thirty years the Australians want to prove the rest of the world they directly belong to Asia and that the aborigines are their ancestors. I was always a little skeptic about that, for me the first Australians were some British prisoners who were so violent, dangerous and uneducated that they would be sent at the end of the world! I am a nice person, and sometimes myself victim of clichés, so I do not allow my first impressions to determinate something I didn’t experience personally. So everybody is going to Australia, Nicole Kidman and Kylie Minogue are gay icons, Buz Lurmann is doing a huge film about this country (I mean this continent who should be seen as a new Eldorado), sure why not, and the contact to the nature is something you can’t experience anywhere else!
Wait! I am not so fond of nature! I forgot to say I am French, and I have this theory that French people brought the rest of our western contemporary world a lot of its developed culture. It means for me that when Louis XIV started the actual show business culture giving the most flamboyant balls of Europe in the 17th century, he just meant to distract those rebel princes with superficial occupations to have less war in the kingdom. Wearing wigs and make up is still a challenge for many men, but you would lose the face in Versailles if you wouldn’t wear the right ones. What I am trying to say is that the international “Grandeur” of my culture is based on the negation of the nature; we made a statement out of superficiality, to prove we had nothing to do with animals. We needed to violently domesticate our surrounding because it was a threat to our justification. “Je pense, donc je suis” means that anything which is not able to think as much as we is not existing! I, once, impressed my restaurant owners New Yorker friends explaining them that in France we would eat so many ugly animals like snails or oysters because we were afraid of them, and eating them was a proof of our domination. I could resume this essential character of the base of French cuisine with: “Eat it before it eats you!” I got some applause!
So I am back, fighting for reasons not to go in Australia, and then I hear always more often how fantastic is the gay parade in Sydney, that they have a French name for it “Mardi Gras” and that everybody is wearing wigs and make up! It is decided, I will try and make the person I love the most in my life so happy, because he loves so much the nature (opposites attracts!).
Mardi Gras was fantastic, even though very different from what I expected (but this is not in this paper, we still talk about primal instincts) and in the program of the two weeks festivities, I hear about an installation from Spencer Tunick trying to photograph as many naked people in the most famous opera of the world. I love my body but I love my clothes too, being naked make sense for me only in a sexual environment. I say also, that I have the most beautiful cock in the world (and I am very proud of it) but unfortunately, I am obsessively attracted by ugly enormous cocks! Here is a challenge (and I love to run them!), being naked in the middle of people I don’t want to have sex, in a place where it is impossible to have sex. Then, why being naked? Just to think about, and analyze our perception of a very primitive fact, being naked, the primal state of facing the outside world, in a very educated place, a recognized temple of western culture. I couldn’t do it without someone really motivating me, but doing it in the middle of people I never met would be easier! There is this Finnish chef, who can apparently interpret the finest Catalonian cuisine, who tells me “Let’s go naked! “ I’m in! We register online, he promises to wake me up at 3 a.m. We have to be there at 4 a.m, and I don’t want to be late. For me the installation is as important as its preparation. How people gather? What is the structure? What could cost to organize such an event? These are questions which are exactly as important as the deep meaning of itself, for my own experience.
I can’t sleep and at 3:15 a.m, alone, I start looking for Toni (I asked him by chance the number of his dorm). I will knock at the door twice, but I am not going to wake up the whole dorm without being sure he is in there. I am psychologically ready to be naked in front of thousands; I don’t need anybody anymore to motivate me! The door opens up, he will be ready in three minutes, the alarm clock didn’t work! We are late and the taxi is the easiest, ten minutes later, we arrive and so do people from everywhere. There is a kind of privileged situation. If you didn’t register online you are not sure to get in. There are intellectual, educated persons who keep their formulary (and feeling like a V.I.P pass) in their hand, who were waiting and prepared for this art performance; and there is some less intellectual and educated who seem to be there by accident (men mostly), to have the chance on peeping some boobs! I have my registration in my hand and very fast I get a sit number for the inside of the opera, the installation number two. Those with the sit tickets are definitely the V.I.P’s! The first picture will be with everybody on the steps of the entrance. The crowd is getting bigger and bigger and the organization looks like a bit behind the situation. Most of the people didn’t sleep, there is too few information about what is going on and everybody start to be cold. Suddenly some appear with hot beverages and the toilets inside of the opera are getting open. I think that it is the moment where the mass starts to take its own identity. There is something happening that everybody is feeling without being able to define or control.
And we are not naked yet!
Around six, with the sunrise, there is finally enough light for the installation, people in the garden can start to undress and join the front of the steps of the opera house. In two minutes thousand men and women are naked, everybody screams, laughs and applause. Some megaphone is giving the directions where to run. Everybody is happy but I cry, I cry so much that I don’t know how to hide my tears. Everybody is having fun but I see repressed images from Hieronymus Bosch and from Auschwitz were masses of naked people run from something awful. I know this is not right, but I know that it is what I was looking for, the confrontation to my anguishes around the nudity! I saw the real fear of my subconscious with being naked!
We are already on the steps and it is our turn, people are so happy to undress, I try to keep my underwear as long as possible, the cold is not very flattering for most of the men.
I can recognize very soon some masses behavior codes from football stadiums: the shouting, the hands movements and the social proximity from strangers. I had my primal moment, I just want to cooperate for a bigger purpose, I am ready to be again a very intellectual person who needs to take on the second level anything happening. Then the whole thing is for me so interesting about communication and perception. The artist has a lot of difficulty to transmit his global view to us and we do not understand what he really expects from us. We should go on the front but where is the front? Eventually we sit, we stand, we lay, we raise the hands and we hug.
The Finnish guy had problems with hugging me naked; I guess it was for him the moment where he was confronting his primal fears. Everybody got something at the end!
jeudi 25 février 2010
Facebook or Blog?
So, I will keep the idea of the blog, even though the result might look very different from the beginning. First there is Facebook that I totally underestimated which could sound like a repetition of the blog but actually, the problem is that the blog could be a repetition of Facebook. If you don’t want to lose the face, you have to put on FB everything almost on real time; otherwise the interest is fading in the surrounding of the other Facebookers (what a pressure!). Then, my favorite moment to write is at breakfast, at 7 a.m, when everybody (and of course Micky) is still sleeping and when I can think clearly, drinking my two liters of black tea. I have no idea how Micky could, just waking up, stand me babbling for hours (tea can be worse than coffee!) on “our” common blog and give some necessary complements on the project. So I decided to write it by myself and Micky will read it when he likes and add his own comments (I will try to not censure them), if he feels like it. He will be a kind of “Guest Star”! Now you know about “How?”, the big problem is “What?”. If everything temporary and very exciting is already on FB, what is left for the blog? Of course what is not possible on FB, the philosophy! I love to interpret small things from the daily life into a timeless and spiritual dimension and this is boring on FB. Here it is; when you check all the 53 notifications of your 500 “FBF” (when Paris Hilton is doing shows about her new BFF[Best Friend Forever], everybody should be allowed to have plenty of FBF [FaceBook Friend], they are not automatically their negation but a very nice complement), there is no room for the philosophy of Philippe Claude. You need to select in the shortest time what is really important for you right now; and there is no time to read at that moment. You cannot decently push a button “I like” on some pretentious wannabe philosophy from me; but if you decide to “push the button” of my blog link you know it could take three to five minutes, and then I get you for me alone without any concurrence!
So, if any piece of writing needs an introduction, I guess we are thru and now we can start Australia. And of course there is again something before to start: the preparation of the start; the luggage! For those who do not know yet, I love to travel, I love elegant fashion and I come from one of the biggest colonialist nation (I am deeply ashamed about it, but the history is difficult to rewrite and on the fashion level it could have been worse!). It means, you are not sending me to Australia with some piece of Chinese cheap trolley, it has to be convenient, elegant and not to flashy (when your luggage get stolen, it is not very convenient). Since I have to admit I can’t afford to travel like Karl Lagerfeld and his 20 Goyard suitcases, I went to the KDW in Berlin and looked for Quality, Sobriety and Price. I wish it would have materialized itself with something else than Samsonite.
My budget was Longchamp and I have to recognize that what I wanted was ugly and expensive at Longchamp and then I found it, the soft resistant fabric, 100 liters capacity (no, I don’t travel with my booze, it is just the way they measure bags!) and not looking bad in that red. I am a victim of labels, but in a cultural way. I need a certain image for a label and then it should stick to it and even if it is not my favorite, I will respect it. What was the image of Samsonite for me? A kind of hard grey box on which an elephant could sit on it! It was red, soft, 115 Euros, ten years guarantied and had rolls; “Do you take credit cards?”Once I could pass the obstacle of the label, everything from that label became desirable and then I saw it, the “Homage 2” line, in chocolate nylon and beige leather with a lifetime guaranty! It was like Vuitton, without being Vuitton and for “only” 400 Euros. But where were the rolls, if I love the esthetics of the colonial luggage from the 1930’s, I still need the practicalities of the 2010’s. -“Actually you can buy it on the Internet.” Then three hours later it was ordered on line for 306 Euros and arrived to my home in four days. Micky would inherit from the red one and I’ll parade with my chocolate and beige! And once the taxi driver took mine out of his trunk and said “What a chic bag!”, Micky was no mad at me anymore and could understand why I bought a bag again!
Diese Stühle erinnerten den alten Herrn keinesfalls an Kolonialzeiten, sondern bestimmt an etwas Vulgäres, das eigentlich in ein Bordell gehört. Die Müdigkeit nach einem so langen Arbeitstag führte ihn dazu, mich zu fragen, ob er in einem dieser Stühle Platz nehmen dürfe, um diesen Moment der Ruhe genießen zu können. Mir schien die Frage eher eine Geste der Höflichkeit und ich antwortete: "Bitteschön mein Herr!" Nachdem er sich gesetzt hatte, hellte sich das erschöpfte, abgespannte Gesicht plötzlich auf: er hatte es gewagt! Seine graue, trübe Alltagswelt war durch die Berührung mit der Phantasie durcheinandergebracht worden. Er befand sich mitten im Bühnenbild, auf dem Platz eines Schauspielers, er war ein Künstler!
